This summer, my husband and I celebrated our twenty-fifth anniversary, and my oldest nephew is getting married. Therefore, I have been considering a question often asked at such times: What is the secret to a happy marriage?

One of the answers I have found applies to all relationships: Love others from a well filled with living water rather than a well only filled with the love others give to you.

Love is not about reciprocity. Even if we’re trying to eschew such a mindset, it can be a struggle to love people who are not loving us well in return, for whatever reason. Schools today teach about filling people’s buckets with positive affirmations so they can draw kindness from kindness, and it’s good advice! But in such a scenario, what happens when the well we are pouring from becomes dry? How do we keep our glance from becoming cold and our answers from becoming hard-edged?

The answer: Go to the same source the Lord revealed to the woman at the well in John 4:10-14—for whoever drinks of that water “will never thirst; the water . . .  will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”

Like the woman, we must ask: “Where do you get that living water?”

Simply consider Jesus’ words to “all who labor and are heavy laden”: “Come to me” (Mt 11:28). This is how our wells remain full and our burdens light. Continually, constantly come to Him in myriad ways: the sacraments, prayer, Adoration, reading, the beauty of creation, and even by being with the “least of these” (Mt 25:40).

Jesus poured out his life for us; there is no greater love (Jn 15:13). This is the well from which we must draw to persevere in loving others well. This is the well from which we must draw if we hope to see eternal life.